8:00am Continental Breakfast & Registration No session description available.

8:50am Chairperson’s Opening Remarks No session description available.

9:05am Optimizing Parts Returns Presented by Best Buy No session description available.

9:45am Finding Value In Returns Ashfaque Chowdhury, CIO, New Breed Logistics No session description available. Ashfaque Chowdhury CIO, New Breed Logistics Dr. Chowdhury provides the vision and drives the development and execution of the solutions that New Breed Logistics provides to its clients. He has over 15 years of experience working with leading companies and government agencies in delivery of creative solutions to complex supply chain requirements. He leads the New Breed Technology Services Group (TSG), a logistics technology development, host [read more]

10:25am Returns Convergence: Strategy Sync between Retail & Manufacturing Chris Griffin, Sr. Manager, Global Retail Returns Entertainment & Devices - AOC Global Services, Microsoft Chris Griffin Sr. Manager, Global Retail Returns Entertainment & Devices - AOC Global Services, Microsoft Chris Griffin is currently Senior Manager, Global Retail Returns at Microsoft Corporation where he is responsible for global retail return strategy/policy, process improvement and execution excellence.Chris previously served as Senior Manager, Repair Services and Reverse Logistics at Sprint Nextel where he was responsible for strategy and operations across the organization, including repair center [read more]

11:05 Refreshment Break No session description available.

11:15am Developing A Sustainable E-Waste Recycling Program Chuck Johnston, Senior Director Returns Center, Wal-Mart Session highlights and takeaways include: Being aware of where your e-scrap actually ends-up and the potential impact of the materials your product is made of Improving your data analytics on volume and processing of e-waste Establishing e-waste disposal and management requirements Exploring factors influencing e-waste exporting Managing regulatory concerns Optimizing costly and complex domestic recycling processes Tackling the challenges of limited domestic infrastructure and high demand abroad Chuck Johnston Senior Director Returns Center, Wal-Mart

11:55am Panel Session: Aligning Manufacturer And Retailer Policies To Cut Processing Costs Chuck Johnston, Senior Director Returns Center, Wal-Mart Bill Lange, Director of Warranty and Service Administration, Electrolux In this session our panelists share their lessons learned in the following areas: Benchmarking your return policy against your industry peers to identify your position as a supply chain partner Analyzing the cost and benefits associated with changing your return policy to improve collaborations with your supply chain partners Estimating percentage of returns cost on the retailer vs. the manufacturer to examine best practices in developing the best returns minimizing strategy Gaining senior management buy-in to make changes to your return policy by calculating ROI from policy changes Chuck Johnston Senior Director Returns Center, Wal-Mart Bill Lange Director of Warranty and Service Administration, Electrolux Bill began his career with Electrolux in May of 1998 as the Operations Manager for Electrolux’s contact centers. Since then, he has held various roles within Electrolux. These roles have included, Director of Customer Service and Director of Warranty. He is currently the Director of Warranty and Service Administration. Over the past five years, Bill and his team have reduced Electrolux’s warranty [read more]

12:35pm Lunch No session description available.

1:35pm Optimizing End-To-End Asset Recovery To Decrease Losses And Increase Retailer Collaboration Joe Sannella, General Manager Product Lifecycle, TTE Technology/RCA This interactive session highlights strategies to: Identifying top business goals and objectives including True cost measurements Brand control – creating equity value Increase revenue by decreasing losses Establishing environmental goals No export of e-waste Avoiding future issues De-trash at CRC – recycled packaging Clean existing waste Exploring point of sale strategies for consumer and retailer Consumer – ease of use, simplicity, secondary market, value below new retails  Retailer Recycling – secondary web markets, refurbished, as is for parts, into scrap for recycling Joe Sannella General Manager Product Lifecycle, TTE Technology/RCA Joe is the General Manager of Product Lifecycle for TTE Technology, the North American subsidiary of China based TCL Corporation. In this capacity, he manages the product lifecycle for RCA brand televisions from early idea creation through development, commercialization, launch and retirement. His responsibilities include product planning, aftersales support, quality and warranty. With a total of [read more]

2:15pm Executive Presentation From The CEA No session description available.

2:55pm Refreshment Break No session description available.

3:05pm Should Consumer Returns Be Treated As A Cost Or Profit Center? Mark Ferguson, Professor of Technology and Management, Georgia-Tech No matter what you do with them, consumer returns show up as a cost item on the income statement. Thus, reducing them without adversely affecting the customer experience should be a firm’s primary objective. To help achieve this goal, contracts that align the incentives of the OEMs and the retailers have been explored and tested. Once a product is returned, many firms continue to treat the processing of the returned items as a cost center, where returned units are accumulated into large batches to gain efficiencies in their processing. Recent research has demonstrated that this may not be the best practice, however, if the returned product depreciates quickly. Finally, some best practices of returned product management will be explored. Mark Ferguson Professor of Technology and Management, Georgia-Tech Mark Ferguson is the Steven A. Denning Professor of Technology and Management in the College of Management at Georgia Tech. Dr. Ferguson has consulted with a number of companies regarding their return policies and how to process consumer returns to generate the maximum value. His research in this area has won multiple best paper awards and has been funded by over $600K in grants from the National [read more]

3:45pm Consumer Returns Roundtable Sessions Holger Janssen, Senior Product Quality Manager, VTech Technologies Bob Kerbyson, Senior Director of Global Repair, Motorola Jodi Meyer, Returns Recovery Manager, The Swiss Colony Luis Roth , Director of Contract Manufacturing and Field Support, Keurig Inc. Table 1: Improving Packaging Design For Returns Hosted by: Bob Kerbyson, Senior Director of Global Repair, Motorola Table 2: Improving Asset Recovery For Sales Channels Hosted by: Jodi Meyer, Returns Recovery Manager, The Swiss Colony Table 3:Mitigating Unnecessary Consumer Returns Hosted by: Holger Janssen, Senior Product Quality Manager, VTech Technologies Table 4: Mitigating No Trouble Found (NTF) Returns To Cut Costs And Increase Customer Satisfaction Hosted by: Luis Roth, Director of Contract Manufacturing and Field Support, Keurig Inc. Holger Janssen Senior Product Quality Manager, VTech Technologies Bob Kerbyson Senior Director of Global Repair, Motorola Bob Kerbyson is Senior Director, Global Repair for Motorola’s Home & Networks Mobility (H&NM) business. He is responsible for repair and reverse logistics operations across all Motorola H&NM businesses worldwide. His team optimizes internal and supplier network footprint design and product flows, and is also responsible for the customer facing operations management related to after sal [read more] Jodi Meyer Returns Recovery Manager, The Swiss Colony Jodi manages the Returns Recovery Department for the non-food division of Swiss Colony, where I oversee processes that I originated to increase recovery from customer returns. I have worked for the Swiss Colony in the returns department for over 11 years, and I've been a member of our internal Returns Task Force for the past 8 years. Luis Roth Director of Contract Manufacturing and Field Support, Keurig Inc. Luis is currently the Director of Contract Manufacturing and Field Support at Keurig, located in Reading, Massachusetts. In this role he is responsible for all Contract Manufacturing facilities for Keurig and level 1 and 2 primary suppliers. Luis earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University. Prior to joining Keurig, he worked at Virtual Ink as Operations Mana [read more]

5:10pm Consumer Returns Networking Reception No session description available.

5:40pm Conclusion Of Consumer Returns Road Show Chicago No session description available.